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| Title |
The invasion of Czechoslovakia
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| Document type |
Synopsis
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| Source |
European NAvigator. Etienne Deschamps. Translated by the CVCE.
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| Keywords |
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Prague coup
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| Copyright |
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| Caption |
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| Location in the digital library |
HISTORICAL EVENTS >> 1957–1968 Successes and crises >> Cold War crises >> The invasion of Czechoslovakia
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| Document extract |
The invasion of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party had held power in Czechoslovakia since the 1948 Prague coup. In January 1968, the Stalinist Antonin Novotny was overruled and replaced by Alexander Dubcek, a liberal Communist who sought to reconcile Socialism and freedom. The liberalisation of the regime began in the spring of 1968. Censorship ended and Czech citizens were permitted to travel abroad. The First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, expressed his dissatisfaction, but Prague refused to comply. In fact, as the pressure increased, so did the liberalisation. On 21 August 1968, troops from the Warsaw Pact countries, with the exception of Romania, took advantage of extended training operations to invade Czechoslovakia and arrest the ‘deviant’ leaders. Though Dubcek retained his post for a while after his release, he was soon to be replaced by the pro-Soviet Gustav Husak, who oversaw a return to normality. The USSR had demonstrated once more that it would accord its Socialist brothers only limited sovereignty. The Western powers and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) reacted to the invasion of Czechoslovakia only with declarations of regret. The Communist regime, which was particularly hostile to intellectuals, was to be swept away by the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989.
Read more in ENA |
| See also |
Cartoon by Low on the impact of the Cold War on the plan for a united Europe (1 February 1949)
Crisis in Czechoslovakia (February 1948)
Front page of the Daily Mail on the events in Czechoslovakia (11 March 1948)
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